Elusive (On The Run Book #1) (11 page)

“Speak for yourself,” Zoe said,
checking the raw, pink skin on her elbow.

“You’re fine,” Jack said. “I know.
I broke your fall.”

“Well, my elbow is on fire.”

“I’m sure it’s less painful than being
flattened like that pylon. Come on. The driver is on his feet.”

“What?” The driver, a short man
carrying a little too much weight for his size with thin black hair, cut close
to his head, was scanning the crowd, squinting his dark eyes in an intent way,
as if he were hunting for something. Zoe spun away from him. “Let’s go.”

The outdoor pirate show at
Treasure Island was in full swing.

Jack gripped her hand as they
melted into the throng. They threaded their way through the tourists and
emerged on the far side of the crowd. Jack walked faster, but maintained his
slouchy stride as they hurried along the street that ran at a right angle to
The Strip. They hurried along, passing a huge mall.

Zoe glanced back, but couldn’t
tell if the short guy with the scary eyes was following them.

“Is your car parked around here?”
he asked.

“Back at the garage in The
Venetian,” she said.

“We’ll take mine,” he said as they
crossed another street and suddenly they were out of the tourist district. They
were in a quiet, industrial area with low warehouses and few cars. No flashing
lights, no pressing crowds, no high-rise hotels. Just flat, dusty terrain, a
few scraggy palm trees, and the occasional whoosh of cars as they accelerated
up a nearby freeway entrance ramp.

Amazing to think that only a few
blocks away The Strip vibrated with activity. The sudden quiet was creepy. Jack
transferred his grip to her elbow as they scrambled over a set of railroad
tracks.

Zoe felt a curl of self-doubt.
This was a man she didn’t know.
What
am I doing, walking away into a deserted area with him?
Sure, his
story explained what had happened—sort of—but he’d lied to her about so many
things, the passports, the money, and...she hadn’t even known he owned a gun.

She twisted her arm, and he let
go. He didn’t notice that she’d stopped walking. He continued on to a black
hatchback. He slipped a set of keys out of his pocket, unlocked the doors, and
slid into the driver’s seat. He glanced around and saw her standing behind him.
He put one foot on the ground as he leaned out and called back. “You coming?”

“That’s not your car.”

“It is now.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I don’t think we have time for
this right now.”

A metal sign a few feet in front
of the car pinged and swiveled back and forth as if someone had thumped it. Zoe
frowned and looked at it. It read, NO OVERNIGHT PARKING.

There was a hole in the “o” of the
word “overnight.” Zoe looked back the way they’d come and saw the short man
standing at the railroad tracks, his arm extended, pointing a gun at her.

––––––––

Las Vegas

Friday, 4:10 p.m.

––––––––

JACK reached across and opened the
passenger door. She dove for the car as the sign vibrated again.

Jack threw the car in reverse as
Zoe tumbled into the floorboard, then the car surged forward, and the momentum
shut the passenger door with a solid thud. Zoe flailed around, trying to get
herself upright and in the seat.

“Stay down.” Jack shoved her
shoulder, and she slid back to the floor. She didn’t hear any more shots, but
it was hard to hear anything above the engine noise. Jack scrunched down in the
seat, his head and shoulders tucked low. She decided the floorboard was an
excellent place to be. After a few quick turns, that tossed her around like the
abandoned flyers flittering around The Strip in the wind, Jack’s foot pressed
down on the accelerator, and he straightened in his seat. The road was smooth,
a freeway Zoe saw as she eased into her seat and quickly fastened her seatbelt.
“Is he following us?”

“No. He was on foot. I don’t think
his car is drivable, so we should be okay,” he said as he passed a truck and
slipped neatly in front of it.

Zoe brushed some strands of hair
out of her eyes, tucking them behind her ears. “What is going on? Who was he?”

“No idea,” Jack said, his gaze
switching quickly from the road to the mirrors and then back to the road. “I
didn’t get a good look at him, but my best guess is that he’s one of my friends
from the office.”

Maybe because her heart was still
racing and her legs felt like she’d just finished a half marathon while he
looked like he had nothing more important to do than set the cruise control,
his cool response and expressionless face riled her. “How can you be so calm?
What is going on? That man was shooting at us, no—at
me
,” she said, her voice
rising. “Why was he shooting at me?”

“Taking your questions in order,”
he said as he squinted into the sun at a green billboard listing exits, “I’m
rather freaked out myself, but someone has to drive, don’t they?” He flashed
her a quick smile. “So I’ll wait until we find a nice quiet rest stop to have a
panic attack. Next, I have no idea what’s going on. And last, he shot at you,
presumably, because you were with me. He couldn’t get a clear shot at me.”

Zoe gave him a long look, trying
to assess if that comment about panic attack was a dig, but he seemed to be
more concerned about who was on the road with them, than about shooting verbal
barbs at her. He’d always been a reserved person. Early on, his very closed-off
nature had been a bit of a turn-on for her. It was a challenge, breaking
through that reticence. She flushed, remembering a few times when “reticent”
would be the last word she would have picked to describe him. But there were
only a few times like that. More often than not, he’d been emotionally shut away
from her, locked in his own world. But there was something about that smile
that he’d flung so casually at her, something unguarded and vulnerable in his
face—something that she hadn’t seen in a long time. She gave herself a mental
shake. That smile of his was dangerous. She’d fallen for that smile before and
look where it had landed her: squarely in a murder and fraud investigation, not
to mention the fact that someone was shooting at her. And what was she
doing...thinking about his smile right now?

She turned sideways to face him.
“So you’re as confused as I am?” He opened his mouth, but Zoe continued,
“Because I’m pretty confused, Jack. Let’s start with my first hint that you’ve
been lying to me:
cousin
Eddie—not a cousin and not a guy, by the way—why did you let me think that?”

“There are certain...things about me
that you don’t know.” He switched on the blinker and moved to the exit ramp.
Zoe noticed that when he reached up to adjust the rearview mirror, his hand
trembled slightly.

She was glad to see he wasn’t
completely unfazed by everything that had happened. “I arrived at that
conclusion all by myself.” Jack winced. “Why don’t you fill me in on
these...things?”

“I can’t,” he said. “I would have
liked to have told you before, but I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Confidentiality agreement.”

Zoe rolled her eyes. “You expect
me to believe that?”

“It’s the truth,” he said, mildly
as he guided the car into a busy eight-lane road lined with a mix of big box
stores, low-slung shopping centers, and apartment complexes.

“So leading me to believe that
Eddie was a man was part of the confidentiality agreement—that must be one
specific document.”

“I didn’t
lead
you to believe anything.
I mentioned the name and you assumed it was a guy,” Jack said.

“That’s still deception.”

“Omission,” he countered.

Zoe shook her head impatiently.
“Okay, forget that.
She
is not your cousin. She says she doesn’t even know you.”

“She’s not my cousin,” Jack said.

“So what is she? An old
girlfriend? And why did she lie to me?”

“Careful, it almost sounds as if
you’re jealous.”

Zoe’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t care
what she was...or is...to you. All I care about is that you lied to me about her
and she lied to me. I want the truth. I want to know what is going on—what have
you got me involved in, Jack? Or should I say Brian?”

His reaction was barely
perceptible. He continued the smooth movement of his hands on the steering
wheel, but she saw the tightening around the corners of his eyes. He stopped at
a red light and swiveled toward Zoe, his arm angled over the steering wheel.
“Look, Zoe, there are some things I can’t explain. I can’t tell you why I lied
to you. Eddie lied to you because I told her to tell anyone who asked that she
didn’t know me. She’s an old friend from work.”

“From your boring pharmaceutical
sales job or your boring government job?”

“The government job.”

“I can’t quite picture it—you and
Eddie talking over the cubicle walls, running out for a sandwich, and chipping
in for the monthly birthday cake.”

“How do you know that’s what
office workers do? You’ve never worked in an office.”

“You forget, I have Helen. And I
did work in a claims department one summer.”

The light changed and Jack focused
on the road. “I bet that didn’t last long,” he said, a shadow of a smile
crossing his face.

“Fifty-four days. I couldn’t stand
it,” Zoe said.

“Exactly how I felt. Of course, I
stuck it out quite a bit longer than you.”

“I’m sure you did. So you know
Eddie from...where exactly was it again?”

“Policy and Plans Division.”

“God, just the name makes me want
to yawn,” Zoe said, and he grinned, but when he didn’t say anything else, Zoe
waved her hand in a circular motion. “Go on.”

Jack raised his eyebrows. “You
want to know more about policy and plans? So few do. It can be quite
fascinating, if you look at the big picture—”

“Eddie. More about Eddie,” Zoe
said, sharply.

“Oh, Eddie. Well, we worked
together. I quit and moved back to Georgia. We kept in touch sporadically.”

Zoe frowned. “I don’t remember
anything like that—not even a Christmas card from her.”

Jack shrugged one shoulder.
“Through e-mail. She got married and moved to Vegas. Her family owns the glass
store. So when I came out here the first time, I went by to say hello. I
introduced her to Connor later. It was when he and I went to one of those
business expos.”

“And she’s the supplier for the
paperweights you give to clients.”

“Yes. Connor insisted, you
remember that.”

“Yes, I do,” she murmured. Zoe had
been involved peripherally in a few business discussions early on in their
marriage. She remembered how Connor swore that the paperweights were exactly
right for the business to giveaway to clients—“a signature item that was unique
and memorable.” Zoe hadn’t really seen it that way. She’d suggested something
more cutting-edge because GRS was a
green
technology
company. Connor had insisted, and Jack had said he
didn’t care. Jack had been more concerned about developing business contacts
and wrangling appointments with CEOs to pitch their services.

Zoe waved her hand as if swishing
away the paperweight tangent they were on. “So she sells glass.”

“Murano glass,” Jack qualified.
“It’s quite sought-after.”

“I don’t care if she sells
diamonds. You went to her when you were in trouble.”

“Yes,” Jack said simply.

Zoe raised her eyebrows.

“More? Okay. Well, she was an old friend.
I knew I could trust her, and she happened to live in the same city where
Connor still had an apartment.”

Zoe frowned. “Connor has an
apartment? Here? In Vegas? But he has a house in Dallas. He never said anything
about living here.”

“Apparently, there were quite a
few things he never said anything about.”

“And that’s where we’re going
now?” she asked, noticing that in the space of a few miles the neighborhood had
deteriorated. Aging, low-slung strip malls spotted with graffiti and gang tags
lined the road. “That’s your plan? I know you have one. You’ve always got one.”

As they passed a small residential
area of tired ranchers with patchy grass and dirt yards, Jack said, “You’re
right. It’s not much, so I’m open to any other suggestions you might have,
other than impulsively running in a random direction.”

“I didn’t run off on a whim.
Besides, there’s nothing wrong with following an impulse,” Zoe said heatedly.
“Just because you make a decision quickly doesn’t mean it’s wrong. You don’t
always need a lot of time to make a good decision. Sure, I decided to come here
on instinct, but I found you, didn’t I?”

Zoe thought she heard him murmur
something under his breath about lucky breaks, but she chose to ignore it.
After a beat of silence, Jack said, “There appears to be no answer to that
question which will further my argument, so I will wisely avoid it and ask
instead, do you have a cell phone?”

“Yes,” Zoe said as they drove by
two skinny kids who were riding bikes in wide loops around the deserted parking
lot of a boarded-up grocery store.

“Let me see it,” Jack said. Zoe
reluctantly handed it over. “You’re not going to throw it out the window are
you?”

“No,” Jack said with a small
smile. As he drove, he flipped the casing open and removed the battery and SIM
card, then handed everything back. “Just to make sure,” he said. He didn’t say
what they were making sure of, and Zoe didn’t ask. She didn’t want it put into
words. She dropped everything into her messenger bag as Jack pulled into the
parking lot of the Oasis Apartment complex.

The three-story units were pressed
close together, and a few spindly palm trees strained for the open sky above
the rooflines. Stucco flaking from the exterior of the buildings littered the
cracked sidewalks as if the whole complex was a giant reptile sloughing off its
old skin.

“How did you find out about this
place?” Zoe asked, stepping over a broken glass bottle near the stairs of
building C. It wasn’t the kind of place that Zoe wanted to visit, but she
wasn’t waiting in the car alone either. Jack cut her a look. “Right,” Zoe said.
“That’s probably another thing I don’t want to know.”

The apartment was situated in a
breezeway under an open-air stairway, which smelled rank. She kept her hands in
her pockets as she followed Jack into the alcove under the stairs. She noticed
he didn’t hesitate. He headed unerringly in the right direction. “Been here
before?”

“Yesterday. Before that, I had no
idea about his little hideaway, such as it is.” He bent over the door handle.
Zoe said, “Great, you’re picking the lock. Well, I suppose we’re already in so
much trouble, what’s a little breaking and entering?”

He twisted the handle, pushed the
door open. “No need to worry—no further black marks on our records,” he said.
“I have a key,” he said, holding one up.

“Another thing I probably don’t
want to know about,” Zoe said.

“Found it under the flower pot,”
he said, nodding to a foot-tall prickly pear cactus in a medium-sized
terracotta pot beside the door.

“Yet, you’re wearing gloves,” she
said, eyeing his pale blue hands.

“You can never be too careful.
Probably best to keep your hands in your pockets. After you,” he said with a
wave of his gloved hand.

Zoe stepped inside. The apartment
was airless and dark. Jack closed the door and hit the light switch. “This is
Connor’s apartment?” Zoe asked. The soles of her sandals made a sucking sound
as they clung to some invisible sticky substance on the entryway tiles. She
moved onto the spotted brown carpet of the living area where an orange tweed
couch was positioned in front of a heavy dark wood coffee table littered with
game controllers. A boxy twenty-five inch television perched on two
cinderblocks. A high counter separated the living room from the kitchen on the
far left side of the room, and Zoe could see stacks of take-out containers and
pizza boxes tilting on the kitchen counter beside discarded cups from a variety
of fast food chains.

“Are you sure?” she asked,
exchanging a glance with Jack. They’d both been to Connor’s empty house in
Dallas with it’s leather couches, chandeliers, and stainless steel kitchen.
Formica countertops and dirty commercial-grade carpet weren’t his style. This
whole place wasn’t his style, except for the ancient computer. Despite his
flashy car and latest digital appliances in his kitchen in Dallas, at his core,
Connor was a Luddite. If he’d built that house in Dallas, Zoe was sure the
sound system would connect to a boom box with a cassette player. Ever
suspicious of new technology, Connor avoided upgrading, always insisting that
the newest electronic gadget or computer or software wouldn’t be as good as
what he had.